Shake Up at Guns & Ammo...

[Kevin Gullette]

.......abound!!

I STILL have my first, and only, corded Black & Decker drill......that I bought with Green Stamps, while in high school.

Then there's the old "gas wars"........yeah.....we'll never see THAT again.

Subscriptions????.....my last one....now gone...was Precision Shooting. Heck.......I can't remember the last "American Rifleman" that came in the mail. And I'm a LIFE member!!!

Gettin' OLD.........

Kevin

P.S. Hey Doug.......maybe someday I'll tell ya my Lane Simpson/17 Mach IV story.

[montdoug]

Love to hear it Kevin, call me .

[17VLD]

We all NEED to hear that story,don't keep us hangin now.
Matt

[montdoug]

That was a fairly enticing lead-in wasn't it Matt? I was planning on the "Ma Bell" route to get as Paul Harvey use to say,....."The REST of the Story",....(I know he's got me hooked!). Maybe however Mr. Kevin likes typing and can be coerced into spilling the beans on line .
"Enquiring Minds Want to Know"?

[Bill K]

Maybe it is along the lines of Simpson's article on the 17 HH. Bill K

[Kevin Gullette]

.....that Mr. Simpson did a "few" articles on the 17 Mach IV cartridge.

Turns out that he had acquired an O'Brien Field Grade rifle in 17 Mach IV. He got a lot of typing "mileage" out of that rifle......pictures, loads, targets, groups, etc.

I somehow ended up calling him......and he offered the rifle for sale, which I bought with attached scope.

The rest of the story........is when I lifted the scope, with Conetrol rings, off of the rifle......the rear base FELL OFF OF THE ACTION!!!!

I've always wondered how such a shy, unassuming writer.......shot such nice groups.

I may still have some of those old articles/magazines.........

Friend Of The 17
Kevin

[montdoug]

Having lived in Gun Writer rich environments for many years Kevin that sounds truly normal, "unfortunately". Thanks for sharing! Fit's right in with the 77-.22 Hornet article he wrote.
A friend who use to live in way North West Montana told me of being friends with one a the writers of the time named "Mason Williams" and not the musician named Mason Williams of "Classical Gas" fame. He use to have my friend work up and shoot a lot of his testing loads for magazine data in his articles. I was told that one time the weather set in before the loads were all tested but the writer had a magazine deadline to meet so he just set down with my pal and looked at what he had established so far and then speculated what would happen with the upper level loads and ran with it . My buddy who is a safe sane guy near freaked out but he was assured he tells me, "Not to worry, it'll be close enough" !!!
Unethical butt-heads come in all professions. Even gun writers sadly . Schedules and deadlines to meet and all that.

[Alex]

... I bought one. Had a lovely Browning Micro Medallion 22H at the time and thought the Ruger would keep me from scratching it up. His article as well as the Florida based rag that prefessed to be the Consumer Reports of guns saying that the Ruger was almost as accurate as a Cooper, and thus a better buy reinforced Simpson's recommendations and I bought the Ruger.

Of all the guns I've owned, that one stayed the shortest time in my possession of any. I even put a Dayton Triaster (sp?) on it. 3" groups were the norm! A short time later an article in Precision Shooting reported that a complaint to Ruger about the patterns their 22H shot got the reply that 3" to 4" groups were the norm for the caliber.

The 22H Micro Medallion would shoot 100 yard 5 shot 0.56" groups back to back with a sock full of soy beans and a rolled up handkerchief for support. Had an affair with the rifle for two years. Cousin Bobby once said he couldn't understand why I would spend so much time with the only rifle in my safe that he wouldn't give me 25 dollars for. 10 or so years ago I made the mistake of selling it to Joe Novotny who still says it's the first gun out of the safe when he goes PD hunting. Even taught his step-son to shoot with it.

Plus, my new 22H Micro Hornet from Browning (costing about 100 bux more thatn the MM did) shoots even better with factory Hornady 35 gr VMaxes. Do have to say they suck much past 100 yards. Still accurate but not overly lethal that far out.

Still subscribe to Shooting Times, and like the stuff Lane writes, but he sure screwed that article up!

Alex

[Bayou City Boy]

I'm not a Lane Simpson fan and I haven't read any of the gun wrags for years, but if he gets blamed for someone buying a poor shooting Ruger in 22 Hornet, I guess he should get credit for the one I bought (blue/wood stock sporter weight) a year ago with plans to re-barrel to 17 HH once reamer specs were available.

I made the mistake of taking it down country one weekend and shooting a box of the same same Hornady 35 grain factory stuff and also a box of Remington 45 grain factory stuff through it. At 100 yards the rifle shot consistent 0.5" 5-shot clover leaf groups with both bullets with a 2.5X8 VX3 Leupy scope attached. Net result: it is staying in its present configuration.

To get a 17HH, I bought the only stainless laminated Ruger 77 in 17 HH I've seen while in San Antonio/Boerne awhile back, and it too shoots extremely well with factory stuff. I haven't hand loaded anything for it yet but plan to soon.

Maybe old Lane needs the Rick Jamison treatment if he's leading shooters astray. My solution to that issue years ago was to quit reading the monthly paid advertisements from he and his typewriter/keyboard compadres which is all the shooting wrags ever were and I'm guessing still are.

-BCB

[montdoug]

I remember way back when Oehler must have given one free or paid RickyBoy Jamison to promote their "Oehler 43 Personal Ballistics Laboratory".
Every article that clown wrote after that managed the use the full and complete title "Oehler 43 Personal Ballistics Laboratory" at least 3 or 4 times per article .
Once he started using that thing in his massive ad campaign disguised as gun rag articles his "strain gauge" results from his "Oehler 43 Personal Ballistics Laboratory" , he turned .308 loads into .300 Savage velocities, .300 Win Mag loads into .30-06 velocities, .22-250 loads into .223 velocities and basically neutered every round he tested.
IMO the reason for all the neutering was he was all lawyered up at that time and thinking about courts and such. It was about then he was talking up "his" new wildcat rounds he'd copied from the multitude of wildcats just like em from guys before him, guys like P.O. Ackley and the rest who weren't sneaky enough to patent everything they did then write all kinda stories about em and get a company like Winchester who's dumb enough to manufacture them to do so and then sue the snot out of em for patent infringement. Ackley and most all of em to my knowledge just enjoyed the sport and shared info willingly.
Just my cynical opinion as it was shared with me by a trusted shooting business insider and it all made sense to me.
Cynic that I am I trust dang few of em, hence no magazines in the mailbox anymore.